Year of Projects: Week 32

    I finished the socks I was working on.  I used up two of the five yarns completely.  

I especially like the yarn I used for the heel.  I dyed all the yarns myself at two different times.  The two yarns on the foot I did do at the same time in the same pot.  I think its interesting how those two yarns took the dye differently.

I don't actually know the exact fiber content but I know the "toe" yarn was either angora or alpaca.  There are alot of fuzzy guard hair type thingies.  It took the blue out of the pot whereas the other, probably 100% wool, yarn took up the green.  The difference is more noticeable in person.  I don't dye yarn very frequently so I'm still learning many of the nuances.

    I did a little reading once I got the socks done.  I'm still making my way through book 6 of the Broken Kingdoms series.

    I worked my first weekend last weekend.  I was a little nervous as I was completely alone except for my phlebotomist.  Everywhere else I've worked has been larger so I've worked with at least one other person.  I can call people in, if needed, but if the proverbial crap hits the fan, having time to call for help is non existent.  Everything went okay though.

    I've been off this weekend so I've been cooking.  Yesterday I made coffee cake.  It's my great-aunt Eunice's recipe.  It's absolutely delicious; I make this quite frequently.

Sour Cream Pecan Coffee Cake:                                  Eunice Gingerich

1 C. margarine                                                               1 tsp. baking powder

2 C. sugar                                                                      1/4 tsp. salt

2 eggs                                                                            1/2 tsp. vanilla

2 C. flour                                                                        1 C. sour cream

Cream margarine and sugar.  Add eggs and beat.  Add dry ingredients and vanilla.  Fold in sour cream.

Topping Mixture:

6T. brown sugar                                                              3/4 C. chopped nuts

1 tsp. cinnamon

Spoon 1/2 of the topping mixture in greased bundt pan.  Cover with 1/2 of the batter.  Spoon rest of topping on batter.  Cover with the remaining batter.  Bake at 350* for 55 to 60 minutes.  Let set 10 minutes.  Invert on plate.  Serve warm of cold.

I use butter in place of margarine.  I also usually cut back the sugar by half a cup as this is very very sweet as written.  For the pictured batch, I only had 1/2 C sour cream on hand so I made up the other 1/2 C with yogurt.  We really like it with the yogurt in it.  It has stayed more moist, so I'll probably be doing this in the future.  I did this in the new oven, so I also cut back the temp to 325*, it took about an hour to cook.

    Earlier in the week I made mashed potatoes to go with dinner.  I had some leftover, so today I made potato bread in the bread machine.  I used this recipe: Big Oven Potato Bread.

It's still cooling, so I haven't tasted it yet.  It smelled amazing while it was baking.  Since I used leftover mashed potatoes with milk and butter in them, I omitted the powdered milk from the recipe.  That was the only change I made.  I still have some potatoes left over, so if this is good I'll be making another loaf pronto.

I think that's about it for me this week.  Until later.  Happy crafting.

-Q